I like the new one, but the original is really good, too. You're very good at nailing imagery in your poems. Keep it up! You're a great poet! :)

Hi guys, it's me ZiXiang, since sending in this poem, i've made changes to some imageries and structure, please tell me which one you like better: this one or the original.

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You gaze into that picturesque world, crouched

besides the now soggy New York Times

your father's daily breakfast companion...

thanks to that Poland Spring you just spilled. It

stares back at you through glossy covers, with your own

chapstick lips and acnes beneath Proactiv cheeks.



You hesitate, the time you went skinny dipping

with a man who had a set of cute dimples,

whose name you couldn't remember...but before long

you invade your bubble aquarium, with

guerrilla tactics of your neighbor Mrs.Sanders' cat,

who's snarls and growls freaked the life out of

Brenn, the quirky boy who used to live across the street.



You remember...waiting for the salt between your toes

to bake in the sun before that chilly Spring's first

thunderstorm, and you grasp for the shells, the sands and

the run-along crabs of Howard Beach that now tickle

your memory and make your scalp itch with yearning,

like your Grandma's knitted scarves of nostalgia...



Your cichlids start to jut their dainty fins, the memory

of the time your cousin Nelle did a catwalk

down Gordon Road for all the guys to see...You feel them

tingle your palm in sudden bites...remember how your parrot

Sergeant Bubba, woke you up with his screechy

"Shoot her one more time, baby" after you fell asleep

on your carpet, the night of your awful second date?



Your clown fish smooch the nasty scar on your index finger

it was from that night when you burned yourself

making a jambalaya...You were trying to impress

your mother-in-law, who wasn't the most pleasant

lady in the world...



Your hands are now dangling in the bath

of imaginary soap bubbles which used to be as real as your

secret obsession with rice pudding and toffee, and

which you used to make in your backyard

with your best friend Lou-Ellis, who now lives

across the ocean on the other side of the world...